How is what you describe as 'free will' inseparable from being purely random?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Incredible. What a dishonest answer. In fact, it's not an answer at all. No one said this conversation was purely random.

Let me, Prophet Woland, make a prediction on the determinist nature of this thread.

I feel it's predetermined that Dominic will continue his display of intellectual dishonesty until he runs away. Just like he ran away from "A Short Essay on Free Will" and his own thread "Do you have free will?". Christians tend to become very very cautious and slippery when free will is being discussed, because they cannot seem to hold a logically consistent view of it.

It's sort of sad to watch them run away and move on to other things as if nothing had happened. I always wondered how they justify their flight in their minds.

Your claims are not internally consisted in the form of the analogy you made as well as the conclusion you drew. This is often referred to as a non-sequitir, or spelled out in plain english,"You're logic does not follow".

Your claim against my claim is not validated by an unimpeachable logical authority. I do not acknowledge your authority in this matter. If you think my analogy is a fallacy, persuade me or be satisfied with your own findings. Announcing your opinion about my logic is probably not very interesting to anyone.

Quote

And this is what exactly?

Not sure what you mean, either. Nvm though.

Quote

Ideas are still not things and your analogy still does not hold.

Things is too casual a term to even discuss. Everything is a thing.

The analogy I made is just to point out that your definition of delusional as making 'claims as if they pertain to reality/existence that are entirely inseparable from make believe' is too general to be very useful. Sorry if you don't like my analogy but as I pointed out, there are other things we consider part of reality/existence are entirely inseparable from make believe. Money - useful because we agree to make believe it's useful. Games/Sports - real because we make believe they are real. Patriotism/Nationalism - the belief that a country has an identity - that the flag is more than just a piece of cloth. Time - real because we agree to pay attention to various devices which increment a visual display at a regular pace.

These are all things which 'pertain to reality/existence that are entirely inseparable from make believe'. When the Catholic church had civil authority, they printed indulgences as real as money, they wielded armies as powerfully as any secular ideology. I understand that you see the issue of whether or not the idea being taken literally is intended to be supernatural or merely abstract (like the American Flag, the New York Yankees, 5:52pm, or $100) as a defining one, but I disagree and see the difference as notable but not functionally significant. People get just as crazy over their sports, their country, and their money as they do over religion.

Quote

I struck through the ignorant ad hominem.

Sorry, not trying to get personal. I just am getting impatient with seeing the same approach over and over again.

Quote

Are you acknowledging that the earlier analogy is incorrect?

No. Analogies can't be incorrect anyhow - they can be incoherent, or not sufficiently analogous, but incorrect is incorrect. I tried to explain my analogy so it makes it more clear, hope it helps.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

I don't like to try to boil it down to one word pair like that but subjective teleology vs objective teleonomy come close. Determinate/indeterminate is floating in that neighborhood too, but I think that both sides support both determinate and indeterminate processes.

Quote

Where do you see indeterminacy, chance, free will and purpose fitting in ?

I would say that the closer you get to OMM, the more free will and purpose must be disqualified to fit the model and the closer you get to ACME the more chance (and mistakes, evil, injustice) has to be rationalized away.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Unsubstantiated nonsense. An idea is no more a thing then 'red', 'red' doesn't become anything at all and is instead a subjective label for perceived 'color' amongst a wavelength of light as interpreted by rods & cones in your eye.

Quote

The analogy I made is just to point out that your definition of delusional as making 'claims as if they pertain to reality/existence that are entirely inseparable from make believe' is too general to be very useful.

If this is the claim you wished to make, then you should have said it.

Your analogy does not even follow into this explanation as it expressly attempted to compare claiming 'money' as equal to claiming 'religion'. I explained how the two are not comparable and that you presented a false analogy.

Quote

Sorry if you don't like my analogy but as I pointed out, there are other things we consider part of reality/existence are entirely inseparable from make believe.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with my statements, since money is not claimed as being 'real' and 'evident' in existence as anything except the subject reference to a material used in exchange for goods/services.

Your analogy compared such a situation to make believe, ie religion, yet you can't find a religious claim that works in the same way.

Quote

Money - useful because we agree to make believe it's useful.

Irrelevant, how is it relevant?

Again, money is not 'real' its simply a subjective label in a context of material things.

Quote

Games/Sports - real because we make believe they are real.

Games/sports are not 'real' its simply a subjective label in a context of material things. It becomes nothing outside of that material context.

Quote

atriotism/Nationalism - the belief that a country has an identity - that the flag is more than just a piece of cloth.

Now THAT is comparable to make believe, but has nothing to do with the previous two examples. Nor does it validate any previous claim. It is as delusional to believe this as it is to make a religious claim.

Quote

ime - real because we agree to pay attention to various devices which increment a visual display at a regular pace.

lol Subjective labels are not 'real'.

Quote

These are all things which 'pertain to reality/existence that are entirely inseparable from make believe'.

Except they don't exist and are not claimed to exist.

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Is that not separable from ordered sentences with meaning which respond and (attempt to) address the other person's previous 'sentence with meaning' ?

Nice, obfuscation it is.

Will implies a choice in doing an action, regardless of what that action is.

For example:

What is the difference between choosing to type nonsense and choosing to type something in legible english.

Now you, for whatever unexplained reason that you never honestly address and abandon when called on it, have some magical idea of something called 'free will'. Yet, you can't seem to explain how choosing babbling nonsense over the legible english provided 'free will' is involved ( whatever the f**k that is ) is any different from random chance.

Meaning that if taken to its logical conclusion, there is this 'void' in space time where 'free will' exists, somehow, somewhere, who knows. Yet, if we are going to pretend to take you seriously, this is EXACTLY what you create for yourself. Now, this 'void' in space time somehow interacts with the rest of 'space time' in such a way to exchange information. The information coming across is whatever 'choices' selected by this 'free will', yet nothing you describe explains how this choice occurs. The information coming out of this void in space time is inseparable from random chance. it is a completely nonsensical idea, where something is being claimed to exist with a variable that is in dichotomy with determinism that is inseparable from random chance.

So I ask you.. how is it inseparable from random chance?

Do I get a straight answer? No.

Are you going to give me a straight answer now? About as predictable as Woland claims.

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

I would say that the closer you get to OMM, the more free will and purpose must be disqualified to fit the model and the closer you get to ACME the more chance (and mistakes, evil, injustice) has to be rationalized away.

Free will and purpose can still exist in OMM to some degree. The fact that the human mind, and its corresponding will, can be explained by a large number of simple chemical processes in simple brain cells that work together in a huge parallel process, doesn't mean that this process can't lead to free will. Just as in throwing a dice with only very slightly variations in its start state will lead to very different outcomes, the brain does this on a much grander scale.

Luckily for men, the brain is structured in such a way that some neural pathways are much more probable than others based on the individual context (upbringing, environment, etc). This makes people predictable. Just as you can see in this forum, you can predict beforehand which people will have which view points. Therefore, most people are just very slight variations of others. This still doesn't mean that free will doesn't completely exist, and predicting one specific action of one specific person at one specific moment is usually very hard.

Similar with purpose, which is just in the mind of men and creatures that are like it.

« Last Edit: May 18, 2010, 01:14:14 PM by penkie »

Logged

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

"purpose" is a meaningless subjective appeal, the only thing that you can adequately describe whatever it is this 'free will' thing you claim to exist does.. is 'act' that's it. That's why your descriptions of purpose are struck through, they lack a meaningful logical context to the rest of the claim. Plus, there is a hidden dichotomy that you constantly keep making between 'free will' and 'determinism'. This dichotomy is FALSE, free will does not exist in isolation from determinism. It's almost as if you're so stupid you never bothered to look up the actual philosophical arguments surrounding determinism itself, there is compatibilism, incompatibilism etc.

Yet, none of these positions change the fact that once reduced to the inevitable 'free will' ( the religious idea of free will anyway ) becomes a nonsensical point outside of space time that randomly creates 'information'. It doesn't perform in any manner that is separable from being purely random, which begs the question since you insist that it is not random.

NOW HOW IS IT INSEPARABLE FROM RANDOM CHANCE?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

I would say that the closer you get to OMM, the more free will and purpose must be disqualified to fit the model and the closer you get to ACME the more chance (and mistakes, evil, injustice) has to be rationalized away.

Interesting thread yet again, Immediacracy.

I think at the extremes, OMM's have the following in common with ACME's, though they may differ in terminology (ACME is of the I AM THAT I AM variety which I would argue is at the very extreme of your model):

OMM = Universe is entirely deterministic. Pure cause and effect. (some say computational). Free will is an illusion.ACME = Universe is the unfolding will of God, all sense of a personal doership is illusory.

OMM = Universe is essentially meaningless, a soup of particles and energy operated on by forces. Meaning is constructed by man and has no impact on the objective Universe.ACME = Universe is maya, illusion, all appearances, all changes, beyond the understanding of limited man. Only God is real as God is the unchanging background in which all takes place.

One difference I suggest is that the ACME tends to see connectedness of things whereas the OMM stresses separation of things... dependent which route they took to their worldview.

Don't think these positions are poles apart, although at first sight it may appear so. Two sides of a coin if you ask me. Of course, one can say that the coin only rolls when on its edge, otherwise it is stuck.

I see you have many vague concepts about the world, all of which are not grounded in reality.

Your opinion, but I'll bite. Which of my 'concepts about the world' in particular are vague and not 'grounded in reality'? Bear in mind that this thread is a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

Quote

But even though I know all this, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

Why enjoy it at all? Just survive and reproduce. No, really. Exactly why should you enjoy it?

Quote

The combination of ignorance and curiosity leads to a strange worldview yes, and you can live with such a worldview. Luckily structured research has brought progress. Now we can understand large parts of nature and reject the naive ACME fiction. The only reason many people still embrace ACME-like world views is that they don't like the outcome of the research and for some reason feel rational thinking is 'cold', while it really doesn't need to be.

I agree with you mostly, but I don't see how that makes ACME and OMM two ontologically separate things. I just see a pendulum swing. OMM is superior to ACME, unquestionably, but it doesn't mean that they aren't part of an essentially indivisible whole.

Quote

As I said, shamanism and thing like it are caused by the combination of ignorance and curiosity and the will to know the workings of nature.

I would say that ignorance isn't the cause of the ACME worldview, it's just one detrimental aspect of it. The cause of ACME is human consciousness. Obviously. Every indigenous spiritual culture is based around the exact same themes. It's anthropology. Without careful observation and understanding of material processes, ACME is what you get out of the box. Ancestral spirits, rhythmic trance, entheogenic pharmacology, ritual, ceremonial burial, oracles, medicine men, healing, petroglyphs, sacred animals, etc etc. The presumption that man was primarily concerned with understanding nature is weak I think. For most of the span of Homo Sapiens, I would guess that their curiosity was mainly about their own desires and relations and that while survival was important and difficult, it didn't require a great deal of scientific knowledge. Which is something to consider...if OMM is the exclusive foundation of the cosmos, why was it so easy to do without it until just recently?

Quote

Astrology and alchemy were substitutes for science as they pretended to know things about nature. People, including some very great minds, were attracted by mysticism of these pseudo-sciences and also felt the effect of indoctrination. Science started within ignorance and pseudo-sciences, which blocked the development of real science for rather long. I am very happy that some of the greatest minds slowly broke through and got us with the scientific methods as we see them today.

Yes and no. To me, it's like saying 'childhood was a substitute for adolescence as they pretended to know about high school.' and 'adolescence started with playing and pretending with toys but our grown up cars and beer have completely rendered toys obsolete - we are fully mature high school students and our romantic dramas are very serious and absolutely real.'

I know you disagree, but you're wrong. Hah

Quote

Obvious nonsense. OMM is no belief, but a structured approach to the universe without preconceptions.

That's why I said 'True Disbelief'. Symmetry, not equality.

Quote

That presumes such things as dice, rolling, time, self-grouping, combination patterns. From a singularity you get nothing but a singularity unless you factor in metaphysical factors such as sequence, persistence, pattern, and novelty.

Quote

Are you now referring (singularity) that we don't know what the preconditions were that let the BB explode? Well, we don't. So the forces of nature in the singularity that exploded into the BB apparently is different from the black holes we know of. This doesn't mean we need 'metaphysical factors'.

Okay, pre-physical rather than metaphysical. How different? Not much.

Quote

No it's not. Brown, White, Pink, Grey have no wavelength.

Quote

They are our interpretation of the joint processing of a group of photons with different wavelenghts. There is nothing subjective about it, every human can objectively determine a color to be Brown, White, Pink or Grey. Photoshop can do the same, objective, trick.

You're not getting it. Some people don't, can't, or won't. When you say 'they are our interpretation', you make my point. They are not wavelengths. Wavelengths are colorless. They stimulate cells on the retina, those cells send a neurological signal down the optic nerve to the visual cortex. Still no color at all. Electrons, yes. Biochemistry, sure. Zero light. The color is only, as we agree, 'our interpretation'. It is an interpretation composed of nothing but consciousness. What you see as color (and by extension, form, feeling, taste, sound) is a simulation of a homo-centric world, produced by neurology but consisting entirely of orderly relations of literally metaphysical phenomena.

Quote

No the photons stimulate areas in the eye that give electrical signals to the brain. It are these signals that are interpreted.

Exactly. Not wavelengths, concise bioelectric spasms. There's no visible light penetrating the brain at all so it is physically impossible for light and color to by identical.

Quote

No, a dream about a blue ocean is simply remembering the electrical stimulant the color blue gave you. Dreaming or fantasizing allows you to repeat the firing of the same neural pathway the real thing did. There is nothing really blue in your dream or mind.

So you are saying blue is not blue if you dream it? When people say they dreamed of a green grassy hill, they are incorrect?

I know what you are saying completely. It still doesn't make blue a wavelength. The experience of color is subjective. Otherwise we could discover something that was a new color. When we make infrared goggles we would just extend our optical capabilities to see the infrared in it's native color, redder than red. Instead we have to step it down to a visible color. The color isn't in our eyes, or our brain, it's in our living, conscious, human awareness.

Even if you say there is red out there (which I prefer actually...cosmic order and all), what we get is an abstract analog of it which needs to be artificially reproduced in here.

Quote

There is a set of physical processes, namely an interplay between space/time, matter/energy and forces, that together display a certain behavior. Then there is the human construct of order. We overlay the universe with our human desire for order in order to study 'objects' in isolation. We do so to look at the universe and group specific combinations of space/time,matter/energy and forces.

Frustrating. Why can't you see that forces are order? Where would a desire for the universe to overlay itself with order come from and why would it be human, of all things?

Quote

If we see a patch of space/time, in which a large amount of matter clumped together because of gravity we could for instance call it a 'planet'. The fact that we lately redefined 'planet' so that Pluto, a former planet, now is regrouped and branded as a dwarf planet doesn't change one tiny bit about what Pluto really is. It only changes our human need to order the universe.

You're thinking of order in a really narrow, linguistic, categorical sense. I'm talking about the invention of the shapes. Spheres. Nucleated cells. Whorls. The property of spheres where by if you are tiny and standing on the surface, they seem flat. That's what I mean by order. General relativity. That kind of order.

Quote

You don't have to believe anything and you don't contradict my 'OMM' view of baseball. We agree to a set of rules, because it simplifies comparison and competition. We like baseball, because it stimulates our evolutionary need to practice hand-eye coordination, competition, strengthening, etc, for hunting, combat, survival. Wii baseball only resembles baseball by applying the same rules to a set of pixels. It takes our physical needs, but the rest stays the same. You don't need your ACME stuff to understand it.

It's not my ACME stuff, it's the stuff the human race was given by it's neurology. I like OMM too, but I only use it where it works, on objective, material processes. What you are saying about baseball's function though, has nothing to do with it's form. It's a game which pivots on human participation. It has a diamond and a pitcher. The bat makes a satisfying percussive sound when it hits the ball. This is what makes baseball baseball, not that it eeeever so tenuously alters survival probabilities.

Besides, by the time baseball was invented human evolution had already passed the point where natural selection was even relevant. If it's such a strong stimulation for our vestigial hunting and fighting skills, why do increasing numbers favor no physical activity at all? Why aren't new sports coming out at the same clip as new computer games?

Quote

Well, we did evolve like that. There are several mammals that play. Apparently it improves survival rates.

You can say that about anything. Hey, time travel might improve survival rates too, how many mammals evolved that trick?

Quote

OMM doesn't flatten anything. It just better understands the deeper mechanics behind brain functioning and consciousness, etc. I am sorry for you that you lose your 'magical feelings' in this way about thinking.

Trust me, I know every feature of the OMM as well as you do. I'm sorry that you aren't capable of entertaining any possible variation in your worldview, even hypothetically, even as a joke. It just confirms everything I've said about the OMM. Rigorous. Rigid. Rigor Mortis.

Quote

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

I believe you, but I don't know how to help.

Quote

Yes, order is something we perceive. As I said, the universe only exists of space/time, matter/energy and forces. When we find a collection of matter in a piece of space/time that is clumped together and if we see clear boundaries to that matter, we like calling it an object and see it as a separate entity.

The OMM ignores the fact that collections of anything with boundaries are order. The interactions of matter and energy are order. What about General Relativity? How is that not an observation of physical order?

Quote

Its like when you see a cloud. You can see all kinds of patterns.

Patterns? What are those. EXACTLY. Please define what a pattern is so that I could create one from scratch. Not an example, but describe it like you are inventing it. What is a pattern made of?

Quote

It might seem like a house, or a boat, because we similar properties between the shape of the cloud and our mental models of those objects. But what we really see in the end is just a bunch of water molecules that clump together. And whatever pattern we might want to apply to that cloud, it doesn't change anything about the cloud itself.

I see what you're saying, but no. We know that what we really see is only an ephemeral, metaphysical 'image' phenomenon generated by a comparison of filtered 'data' from the visual cortex further conditioned by a massive array of cortical networks of morphological-iconic associative neural texts.

That is what a cloud is to us, unless and until we make a careful meteorological study involving countless collaborative observations to extract cognitive correlations to enhance our associative network with linguistic and empirical texts to reveal deeper levels of objective organization. The idea of 'the cloud itself' is meaningless outside of human observations, but it's philosophically useful - nuomenon.

Quote

In the end the universe is what it is and nothing more. Math, patterns and the English language are eventually only human constructs to describe what we see in the universe.

In the end the universe is everything that it can possibly be except for what it isn't. Math and the English language are semiotic expressions no less real than a solar flare or a block of ice. They are subjective meta-patterns which encode and encapsulate endogenous lower level neurological texts which may or may not be isomorphic to the countless patterns, topologies, discrete continuum, organisms, sensations, perceptions, and image cognitions which we intuit to fill the Cosmos.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"purpose" is a meaningless subjective appeal, the only thing that you can adequately describe whatever it is this 'free will' thing you claim to exist does.. is 'act' that's it. That's why your descriptions of purpose are struck through, they lack a meaningful logical context to the rest of the claim. Plus, there is a hidden dichotomy that you constantly keep making between 'free will' and 'determinism'. This dichotomy is FALSE, free will does not exist in isolation from determinism. It's almost as if you're so stupid you never bothered to look up the actual philosophical arguments surrounding determinism itself, there is compatibilism, incompatibilism etc.

I support libertarian incompatibilism which means I accept indeterminacy as an essential aspect of our experience in the universe.

[For those who are wondering, incompatibilism means a belief that free will and a purely deterministic universe are contradictions. Libertarian means the belief that we have free will and the future is not determined.]

And I say again that indeterminacy covers both randomness and purposeful choice.

Quote

Yet, none of these positions change the fact that once reduced to the inevitable 'free will' ( the religious idea of free will anyway ) becomes a nonsensical point outside of space time that randomly creates 'information'. It doesn't perform in any manner that is separable from being purely random, which begs the question since you insist that it is not random.

NOW HOW IS IT INSEPARABLE FROM RANDOM CHANCE?

As already stated it is the difference between purposeful action vs purposeless (meaningless) action. Purposeful means to achive an objective. Choosing sentences with meaning is for the combined purposes of clarity, to enhance communication, to convey ideas and understanding eg to answer questions.

Incredible. What a dishonest answer. In fact, it's not an answer at all. No one said this conversation was purely random.

Woland

I'm incredulous that out of all of the ideas presented in what I wrote, Free Will vs Determinism is what people get out of it? Pathetic

For the record I with Dominic's position. The fact that the ordinary volition that we experience every waking moment needs to be reimagined as pure determinism just reveals the intellectual contortions that the far right OMM needs to go through to explain everyday apprehensions of reality. Everything needs to be made random or determinable even when the relevant phenomenon being considered (ordinary voluntary intention and it's consequences) is obviously neither, at least on a superficial level.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I'm incredulous that out of all of the ideas presented in what I wrote, Free Will vs Determinism is what people get out of it? Pathetic

Excellent, the beginning of an assertion from an argument of your personal incredulity.

Quote

The fact that the ordinary volition that we experience every waking moment needs to be reimagined as pure determinism just reveals the intellectual contortions that the far right OMM needs to go through to explain everyday apprehensions of reality.

What fact?

What intellectual contortions?

What re-imagining?

Re-imagining from what?

What far right OMM?

What apprehensions?

Why do I have to ask?

Quote

Everything needs to be made random or determinable

Who has asserted anything to be made random?

Who has asserted anything to be made determinable?

What is the counter claim you're making the comparison too?

Quote

even when the relevant phenomenon

What phenomenon?

Quote

being considered (ordinary voluntary intention and it's consequences)

What 'voluntary intention'?

What consequences?

In comparison to what?

Quote

is obviously neither,

Based on what?

Quote

at least on a superficial level.

What superficial level?

Why is there such a void of any explanatory information as to beg every single question I just asked, because not a single thing you assert follows from any claim thus far?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Excellent, the beginning of an assertion from an argument of your personal incredulity.

Ad hominem

Quote

What fact?, intellectual contortions? re-imagining?from what? What far right OMM? What apprehensions? Why do I have to ask? Who ? Who? What? What? What? What? In comparison to what? Based on what? What superficial level? Why?

Going for a fillibuster?Sorry, your behavior bores me. See ya.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Therefore, most people are just very slight variations of others. This still doesn't mean that free will doesn't completely exist, and predicting one specific action of one specific person at one specific moment is usually very hard.

To me, I would say that free will does completely exist on one level of reality, but that it is less or nonexistent on other levels of reality or even under certain conditions (like being asleep). It's not a paradox, or a matter of degree, it just has different properties depending on what your frame of reference is. (Which is the point of OMM vs ACME).

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I support libertarian incompatibilism which means I accept indeterminacy as an essential aspect of our experience in the universe.

[For those who are wondering, incompatibilism means a belief that free will and a purely deterministic universe are contradictions. Libertarian means the belief that we have free will and the future is not determined.]

I want to make you absolutely aware that you are just ignoring ( again ) what I just stated, completely glossing over it as if it didn't exist and as if I didn't just tear your claim apart when I pointed out your subjective pleading appeal. Do you have anything to say to the fact that I just broke down your own claim? Do you have an explanation? An answer? A disagreement even? Any logical counter point at all?

Quote

And I say again that indeterminacy covers both randomness and purposeful choice.

Describe how you tell the difference between choice arrived too by 'purpose' and choice arrived to be purely random chance?

Notice, this drags you kicking and screaming back to the inevitable that you keep avoiding and excusing yourself from addressing given every chance. You can't actually offer to me an explanatory example of a situation where you can actual determine between the two, because the inevitable problem is that you're asserting something you do not know as if you did. You then make up special pleading arguments around subjective labeling, that doesn't adequately answer the problem and we have the same questions begged ALL OVER AGAIN.

How do you not understand this?

Let me guess, on top of just.. ignoring what I just stated.. you are going to repeat yourself like a mindless zombie?

Quote

Quote

Yet, none of these positions change the fact that once reduced to the inevitable 'free will' ( the religious idea of free will anyway ) becomes a nonsensical point outside of space time that randomly creates 'information'. It doesn't perform in any manner that is separable from being purely random, which begs the question since you insist that it is not random.

NOW HOW IS IT INSEPARABLE FROM RANDOM CHANCE?

As already stated it is the difference between purposeful action vs purposeless (meaningless) action. Purposeful means to achive an objective. Choosing sentences with meaning is for the combined purposes of clarity, to enhance communication, to convey ideas and understanding eg to answer questions.

Yes, as already stated.. that I already tore apart.

Do you have something better?

Would you actually like to address what I said in return as I pointed out your fallacies?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

Excellent, the beginning of an assertion from an argument of your personal incredulity.

Ad hominem

false.

An ad hominem describes a situation where you're arguing aganist an implied character trait rather then the actual argument or claims being made. You made a statement from personal incredulity ( another fallacy ), where you personally dismiss someone or something else based on your own lack of understanding or ignorance.

Quote

Quote

What fact?, intellectual contortions? re-imagining?from what? What far right OMM? What apprehensions? Why do I have to ask? Who ? Who? What? What? What? What? In comparison to what? Based on what? What superficial level? Why?

Going for a fillibuster?Sorry, your behavior bores me. See ya.

Too many questions for too many unsupported and dismissive assertions?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me

I think at the extremes, OMM's have the following in common with ACME's, though they may differ in terminology (ACME is of the I AM THAT I AM variety which I would argue is at the very extreme of your model):

OMM = ...

Don't think these positions are poles apart, although at first sight it may appear so. Two sides of a coin if you ask me. Of course, one can say that the coin only rolls when on its edge, otherwise it is stuck.

Thanks, yeah I like your additions. I can go along with two sides of a coin as far as ontology - our universe is OMM on the outside, ACME on the inside. I think of the poles as far as individuals being able to expand or contract their subjectivity between the endo and exo thresholds.

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Why enjoy it at all? Just survive and reproduce. No, really. Exactly why should you enjoy it?

You can't enjoy things unless there is some ultimate goal in life given by ghosts and goblins and the 'spirit of the heart'? You feel that just because I know 'joy' is nothing more than a chemical reaction in my brain which let me do things that are constructive for me, this should mean that I should not allow myself to have this reaction anymore? I enjoy things because I do, and nothing of my understanding of the objective reality stands in my way of enjoyment.

Quote

Yes and no. To me, it's like saying 'childhood was a substitute for adolescence as they pretended to know about high school.' and 'adolescence started with playing and pretending with toys but our grown up cars and beer have completely rendered toys obsolete - we are fully mature high school students and our romantic dramas are very serious and absolutely real.'

I know you disagree, but you're wrong. Hah

The analogy is wrong. Scientifically, the Greek philosophers and mathematicians were childhood. Magic, Alchemy and Religions are more like Heroin and Opium, destroying our minds, preventing us to become basically anything. So of course I disagree. Good that you made a mental model for my thinking which predicts my 'free will' reactions.

Quote

Exactly. Not wavelengths, concise bioelectric spasms. There's no visible light penetrating the brain at all so it is physically impossible for light and color to by identical.

If you mean to say that color is tied to humanity and that in reality color is not part of nature, but in human intepretation of light within a range of wavelenght, you're absolutely right.

Quote

So you are saying blue is not blue if you dream it? When people say they dreamed of a green grassy hill, they are incorrect?

Exactly. What you dream is the stored interpretation of a light with a specific wavelenght. When you see a green grassy hill, the light reflecting from that grass causes the firing of a specific neural path in your brain. In you dream this path is repeated, without you actually seeing or interpreting light.

Quote

The experience of color is subjective. Otherwise we could discover something that was a new color.

No, if it would be subjective Photoshop wouldn't be able to objectively determine the color of a specific pixel. But this depends on what you think subjective means. If you mean subjective in the sense that it is a human characteristic to be able to interpret light of certain wavelengths as colors, then yes.

Quote

Frustrating. Why can't you see that forces are order? Where would a desire for the universe to overlay itself with order come from and why would it be human, of all things?

Forces are not order, they are forces. I am not sure what you perceive as order. If you say anything that we see in the universe is order, then for me the word order loses its meaning.

Quote

You're thinking of order in a really narrow, linguistic, categorical sense. I'm talking about the invention of the shapes. Spheres. Nucleated cells. Whorls. The property of spheres where by if you are tiny and standing on the surface, they seem flat. That's what I mean by order. General relativity. That kind of order.

Sphere is a human invention to describe our model of some perfect geometric shape, that resembles object of certain dimensions in the observable universe. General relativity is a theory which describes the behavior of the universe on large scales. General relativity is not some law that nature is programmed to adhere to, it is descriptive of behavior, and it doesn't describe how nature works. It only is a mathematical framework that gives a proper description of how the universe works, and it seems to work every time we make measurements. But in the end, it is a human mathematical abstraction to model our perceive of the universe.

Quote

It's not my ACME stuff, it's the stuff the human race was given by it's neurology. I like OMM too, but I only use it where it works, on objective, material processes. What you are saying about baseball's function though, has nothing to do with it's form. It's a game which pivots on human participation. It has a diamond and a pitcher. The bat makes a satisfying percussive sound when it hits the ball. This is what makes baseball baseball, not that it eeeever so tenuously alters survival probabilities.

But it does. The guy that wins the game likes to compete, has better hand-eye coordination / can run better, is better than other males, which leads to higher probabilities that this male is also better during hunting (better hand-eye coordination and running), might be healthier and therefore is more attractive to females as a good mate. That's why men are generally more competitive. The "percussive sound" is associated in your mind with "winning", and you like that and therefore it is satisfying.

Quote

Besides, by the time baseball was invented human evolution had already passed the point where natural selection was even relevant. If it's such a strong stimulation for our vestigial hunting and fighting skills, why do increasing numbers favor no physical activity at all? Why aren't new sports coming out at the same clip as new computer games?

Natural selection is still relevant and always will be. Moreover, we don't suddenly loose characteristics we built up in evolution. We don't suddenly loose a liver because 'natural selection is not relevant', nor do we loose our brains. Same with sports and games.

Why do people avoid physical activity? Well, even though physical activity might give an adrenaline rush, it also consumes a lot of energy. And in our caveman ages and before, food was scarce. So, just like any other animal, trying to preserve energy was important as well. Lions are lazy most of the time, except for when they are hungry or play. Playing without consuming energy.. I understand why many people like it.

Quote

You can say that about anything. Hey, time travel might improve survival rates too, how many mammals evolved that trick?

Time travel is physically not possible as far as we know. Moreover, evolution doesn't have a direction. We evolved the characteristics we have. Why? Random. Decreasing our chances for survival? Chances would be slim we would still have the characteristic. Does it increase chances for survival? Chances increase that the characteristic stays. Evolution is not perfect and does not develop optimal 'animals'. Evolution typically finds local optimums. Characteristics that are good enough to survive and reproduce.

Quote

Trust me, I know every feature of the OMM as well as you do. I'm sorry that you aren't capable of entertaining any possible variation in your worldview, even hypothetically, even as a joke. It just confirms everything I've said about the OMM. Rigorous. Rigid. Rigor Mortis.

That's your perception. Point is, OMM accepts the world as it is and that is all you need. This doesn't mean you can't have different political views or ideas how to improve human life. Differences are possible there. But in observing nature it is nonsensical to have any other view. I am also not 'capable of entertaining the possbilities' that gravity is a repulsive force, or that light speed is equal to the speed of sound or that santa claus does exist. In your logic, not considering those possibilities make you rigorous, rigid and dead. In my logic considering these possibilities makes you an idiot.

Quote

Patterns? What are those. EXACTLY. Please define what a pattern is so that I could create one from scratch. Not an example, but describe it like you are inventing it. What is a pattern made of?

Wikipedia sounds fair enough: a pattern is a form, template, or model. As such it an abstraction that allows humans to describe a recurring set of events or objects.

Quote

In the end the universe is everything that it can possibly be except for what it isn't. Math and the English language are semiotic expressions no less real than a solar flare or a block of ice. They are subjective meta-patterns which encode and encapsulate endogenous lower level neurological texts which may or may not be isomorphic to the countless patterns, topologies, discrete continuum, organisms, sensations, perceptions, and image cognitions which we intuit to fill the Cosmos.

You might see mental abstractions as a meta-model of the universe. But they are only real in the sense, that they are represented by a certain neural state of neurons in your brain. The abstractions themselves are nothing more than that: abstractions.

Logged

"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

I enjoy things because I do, and nothing of my understanding of the objective reality stands in my way of enjoyment.

I'm not trying to say that you don't, or shouldn't enjoy your life, I'm just asking you why you (or anyone) should enjoy life at all to bring out the disconnect between your experience of reality and the OMM model of reality.

Quote

Magic, Alchemy and Religions are more like Heroin and Opium, destroying our minds, preventing us to become basically anything.

Science can do all of those things too. I thought it was 'people' who determined these kinds of things, not systems of thought.

Quote

Exactly. What you dream is the stored interpretation of a light with a specific wavelenght. When you see a green grassy hill, the light reflecting from that grass causes the firing of a specific neural path in your brain. In you dream this path is repeated, without you actually seeing or interpreting light.

Obviously, but since the 'interpretation' is not stored as light, and it has to be reconstituted as color in the dreamer's consciousness, what is the color made of at that point? What what does color consist of? How does a neurological electrical signal become a subjective experience of color - what is the last, final step?

Quote

No, if it would be subjective Photoshop wouldn't be able to objectively determine the color of a specific pixel. But this depends on what you think subjective means.

Nope. Photoshop just uses a digital-mathematical analog of our human subjective color wheel to control the output of electromagnetic emitting pixels on the screen. It doesn't need the screen, it can't see color, it's just electronics.

Quote

If you mean subjective in the sense that it is a human characteristic to be able to interpret light of certain wavelengths as colors, then yes.

Yes.

Quote

Forces are not order, they are forces. I am not sure what you perceive as order. If you say anything that we see in the universe is order, then for me the word order loses its meaning.

Cosmos = order. It's pretty straightforward. Order is precisely that which is everywhere and everything, yet nevertheless communicates essential similarities and difference - ordered relations is what the Cosmos is. Matter is a category within that.

Quote

Sphere is a human invention to describe our model of some perfect geometric shape, that resembles object of certain dimensions in the observable universe.

How does resemble work? The OMM takes pattern for granted. Pattern recognition works only because pattern exists.

Quote

General relativity is a theory which describes the behavior of the universe on large scales. General relativity is not some law that nature is programmed to adhere to, it is descriptive of behavior, and it doesn't describe how nature works. It only is a mathematical framework that gives a proper description of how the universe works, and it seems to work every time we make measurements. But in the end, it is a human mathematical abstraction to model our perceive of the universe.

Gravity or electromagnetism and the strong and weak forces can be described in the same way, yet you consider them fundamental to the point that literally nothing else is necessary to explain the Cosmos.

Quote

But it does. The guy that wins the game likes to compete, has better hand-eye coordination / can run better, is better than other males, which leads to higher probabilities that this male is also better during hunting (better hand-eye coordination and running), might be healthier and therefore is more attractive to females as a good mate. That's why men are generally more competitive. The "percussive sound" is associated in your mind with "winning", and you like that and therefore it is satisfying.

You can extrapolate out probable functional teleonomy, and those are valid on that level of analysis, but the vernacular manifestation of the game is a vehicle for teleology first and foremost. Nobody cares why players might benefit evolutionarily unless that is someone's particular interest.

Quote

Natural selection is still relevant and always will be.

I'm surprised that you think that. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that artificial selection has replaced natural selection in Homo Sapiens. We have air conditioning now. We have food. No lions. The natural part is over. Even a massive pandemic would be determined by access to technology rather than innate resistance.

Quote

Moreover, we don't suddenly loose characteristics we built up in evolution. We don't suddenly loose a liver because 'natural selection is not relevant', nor do we loose our brains. Same with sports and games.

I didn't say we should be losing sports, just that they should be exploding just like other games if human evolution were that keen on making them happen.

Quote

Playing without consuming energy.. I understand why many people like it.

So do I, but I don't need to swing out onto a branch of evolutionary justification to define it. Where does it end? I can't see how you can demand that everything that exists does so on the back of specific functionality and purpose, yet completely deny that purpose and function exist outside of human consciousness. It's rhetorical. I do see why. It's straight out of the OMM script.

Quote

Quote

You can say that about anything. Hey, time travel might improve survival rates too, how many mammals evolved that trick?

Time travel is physically not possible as far as we know.

That's why I used it as an example.

Quote

Moreover, evolution doesn't have a direction. We evolved the characteristics we have. Why? Random.

Random doesn't explain anything. Why couldn't time travel randomly become possible, just as life and consciousness? Nvm. OMM

Quote

That's your perception. Point is, OMM accepts the world as it is and that is all you need.

No, that's all you need. I like both eyes, both ears and both arms and legs and I don't see why I would want to pretend that half of what we experience is an illusory or irrelevant figment of the other half.

Quote

But in observing nature it is nonsensical to have any other view.

For you. Not for me.

Quote

I am also not 'capable of entertaining the possbilities' that gravity is a repulsive force, or that light speed is equal to the speed of sound or that santa claus does exist. In your logic, not considering those possibilities make you rigorous, rigid and dead. In my logic considering these possibilities makes you an idiot.

We're all idiots, we just haven't lived long enough to realize it yet.

Quote

Quote

Patterns? What are those. EXACTLY. Please define what a pattern is so that I could create one from scratch. Not an example, but describe it like you are inventing it. What is a pattern made of?

Wikipedia sounds fair enough: a pattern is a form, template, or model. As such it an abstraction that allows humans to describe a recurring set of events or objects.

What's an abstraction made of?

Quote

You might see mental abstractions as a meta-model of the universe. But they are only real in the sense, that they are represented by a certain neural state of neurons in your brain. The abstractions themselves are nothing more than that: abstractions.

They don't need to me anything more than abstractions. Metaphysical essences that define and communicate every aspect of the Cosmos with itself.

Thanks for the conversation. If you want to keep it going that's cool, but I have to take a break for a day or three...

Logged

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Still pushing for the science woo crossover I see. I know you claim a middle ground, but it seems that you are really quite a staunch advocate for the ACME.

Impressive acronyming by the way. You should work in advertising. Either you were joking, unaware or you have been somewhat sly and disingenuous, whatever, I don't really care apart from the inherent manipulation, and the implied first rule of manipulation(TM)[1].

Science and superstition, so skilfully mislabelled, I am in awe, and in complete awareness of the internet-discussion/ first-person-to-mention-Nazis subtlety I am still forced to mention Adolf's famous

Quote

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed

Your woeful woo and wooly thinking ACME

DICTIONARY

Quote

acme |?akm?|noun [in sing. ]the point at which someone or something is best, perfect, or most successful : physics is the acme of scientific knowledge.

Om |?m| |??m| |o?m|noun Hinduism & Tibetan Buddhisma mystic syllable, considered the most sacred mantra. It appears at the beginning and end of most Sanskrit recitations, prayers, and texts.

This is fucking hilarious Immed.

Perhaps you should have subtitled your Subject as "words mean anything today" directly proven with the second subtitle "words do not mean anything today".

Which leads me to the meat, the heart, the hard core of your intent, which I in turn am going to subtitle "woo as a useful life tool" and of course a second subtitle "taking the pith".

As I and others have repeatedly asked you in other threads Immed, have you even one practical suggestion of how to use woo in one's life, let alone in science?

Have you one instance to show that your impassioned wishful thinking, and emotional investment can be justified with just one practical use for woo of any sort (aside from panacea).

I am very uninterested in pursuing any defence of the legitimacy of rational thought and science as tools, you are more than aware of these, and I will take it as given that you are not denying that legitimacy and worth/value.

What I will state is that woo = GUESS. Gnostic's universal evidential search solution.

Woo is the epitome of GUESS Matryoshka dulls receding in beautifully fractaled ignorances and silly superstitions.

As much as I like your flights of fancy Immed, I am bored with your reluctance to acknowledge that woo and science do not mix, cannot mix, and never will mix.

This has been pointed out by myself and by better thinkers than I here many times to you, but you dodge, twist and make partial adjustments to supposed meanings, partial allowances to opposition's accuracies.

If woo of any sort was more than just GUESS, then it would not be woo.

If woo of any sort was capable of being used by science, read by science, embraced by science, in any way, then it would not be woo.

If woo was even capable of being taught in any meaningful way, it would just not be woo.

I have watched with interest your other posts around the site Immed, you have certainly generated some interesting thoughts/perspectives. I am interested if you can actually deconstruct the internal mechanism that causes you to be the obsessive one trick pony when it comes to this particular subject.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that artificial selection has replaced natural selection in Homo Sapiens. We have air conditioning now. We have food. No lions. The natural part is over. Even a massive pandemic would be determined by access to technology rather than innate resistance.

Please elaborate on the distinction between artificial and natural selection.

I'm thinking that if man does it -it is natural.

A bird builds a nest with branches, mud or even pieces of man-made artificial insulation. Is that then not natural?

Logged

Truthfinder:the birds adapt and change through million of years in order to survive ,is that science, then cats should evolve also wings to better catch the birdsMailbag:On a side note, back in college before my conversion, I actually saw a demon sitting next to me in critical thinking class.

Woo: ( ACME ) Non-Woo: ( OMM )Make up everything I do not know.Make up everything What can I observe?Make up everything What can I know?

Logged

"Religious faith is the antithesis to knowledge, it is the opposition to education, and it has to act in animosity against the free exchange of ideas. Why? Because those things are what cause harm to a religions place in society most." - Me